For Emily

Preliminary Thesis: Emily Dickinson’s powerful and influential poetry was caused by her experience with death, her religious upbringing, and her choice of physical isolation. Emily Dickinson wrote over 1100 poems during her period of isolation from 1858 to 1865, all of dealing with themes like sorrow, nature, and love. She bound about 800 of these pieces in fascicles, or self-crafted books, which she rarely showed anyone except family members and certain well-respected friends (Amherst College)…

As someone with a rather intimate and longstanding connection to death, it is no surprise that Emily Dickinson often used poetry as a medium to explore her ever-developing relationship with mortality. Her literary investigation of as much is incredibly diverse in content, her poems often highlighting her attempts to cope with the death of loved ones, or perhaps portraying her endeavors to deepen her understanding of herself and the world around her. Wrought with complexity, Dickinson's poetry on…

Emily Dickinson was born into a rich and powerful Christian family with firm beliefs. She lived in the nineteenth century, from 1830-1886. She grew up the town of Amherst in Massachusetts. Dickinson was educated; which was not that common for a woman who lived in during the era of the industrial revolution. She did some traveling throughout Massachusetts in her earlier years of life. However, toward the late 1860s she kept herself secluded from society. Many let their imaginations run wild about…

Emily Dickinson and John Donne might not seem to have very much in common. They were two poets who lived almost two hundred years apart, on different continents, what could they possibly have in common? However, their poetry holds a common theme. Emily Dickinson had a fascination with death and wrote many of her poems on the subject of death and dying. Likewise, John Donne wrote a few poems about death but, unlike Dickinson, his poems held more of a religious perspective. In particular, death…

ordinary animal. It shows that everything in nature can be both prey and predatory. That is how the world works; an endless cycle of tragedy, normality, and victory. It’s the circle of life. In her second poem, “A narrow Fellow in the Grass,” Emily Dickinson takes a snake, a feared reptile, and explores the feeling of fear that a young boy experiences upon encountering it. She illustrates the uneasiness of that first indication that a snake is near. "The Grass divides as with a Comb - A…

Dickinson and Her Obsession with Death Throughout much of her life Emily Dickinson showed signs of anxiety and obsession. This charming timid young woman retreated to her room and often never left, spending her days locked away writing poetry. When she died she left many works about many different things, but just one look at Emily Dickinson's poems reveals that death is her principal subject, this young spinster had an obsession with it. Other nineteenth-century poets, such as Whitman and…

darkness? According to Emily Dickinson, there are two types of viewing darkness, metaphorically and physically. Physically is the state in which it is actually happening while metaphorically is the in which the mindset creates it. Therefore Dickinson explains her perspective of darkness in a metaphorical terminology and language. Dickinson expresses her thoughts and imaginations as she experiences darkness herself. In the first poem, “Before I got my eyes put out,” by Emily Dickinson explains…

Dickinson’s poems 1577 and 236 challenge the importance of religious sanctions and beliefs, such as attending church service in “Go to Church on the Sabbath” and the meaning the Bible in poem 1577. This reveals that individuality can affect a person’s faith and commitment to the religious world. Christianity is expressed in her writings from a personal perspective which can relate to individuality in the modern-day church. Dickenson encourages freedom and versatility of the religious world…

world. No, it is not Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson is one of the most influential writers of the industrial era, as she was one of the first writers to use the concept of transcendentalism in her works. This means writing about all aspects of life, even the mundane, the vulgar, and the ugly as she realized that this style of writing more closely resembles life than the classic, formal style of writing used previously. Many of Emily Dickson’s poems revolve around similar…

beholder. In other words, everyone interprets the world in a different way. One poet who truly has her own unique view on life is Emily Dickinson. Dillan states, “By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely.” While she was alive, Dickinson only published a handful of poems. Emily dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, “My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close”, and “The Brain is…